This is an Asiatic Black Bear, who is in danger of extinction due to hunting and habitat loss. I drew this bear because I’ve joined up with the Animal Alphabets art challenge on twitter this week. The people who run the official Animal Alphabets twitter account give artists a specific animal to draw each week, and the artists post their work on Mondays at 19:30 GMT. The animals name corresponds to each letter of the alphabet, so at the end of the exercise I should have 26 animals to show.

This challenge has been around for about three rounds at this point, with various sub-themes for each round. The first was just animals in general, the second focused on fictional animals, and the third strayed from the “animal” concept a bit to incorporate fairy-tale characters. I was a bit nervous of what the theme would be for this round, but happily it’s endangered animals. I love making illustrations that have an educational component to them, so this is right up my alley.